I find the image on the ground glass dark especially at the edges. So I took one of those plastic fresnel lenses Ebay dealers sell to folks who can be convinced they can achieve !!BIG SCREEN T.V.!! for four dollars. I got mine from ...
bobinflorida678 $0.99 + $2.98 postage.

I cut it down to fit with the kitchen sissors, laid it on to of the glass, a affixed it to the wood with a couple of pieces of scotch tape.

It works! The only problems so far are . .

1)If any light gets inside the hood you will see an upside down image of your face over what ever it is you are trying to photograph.

2) I think a shorter focal length fresnel lens would be even better. I understand this would be expensive.

I think I'll order another fresnel and do it right.

Question -- I see some of the Graflexi (what's the plural of Graflex?) have a fuzzy edge on top of the chimney. What is this made of?

A).Look closely at the base of the view hood and see how it is attached, varies from model to model to vintage (1907-1950). Small wood screws along the edge or a clip with a few screws normally. With view hood removed then you cam remove the ground glass clip(s) and then take out the ground glass an wash it in dish soap and rince with photoflo the rinstall for a 25% brighter image then add the fresnel to the top if desired.
B).Fur on some of the earlier ones, yarn on others.
C).See the "edit" button at the bottom of the post frame?

_________________The best camera ever made is the one that YOU enjoy using and produces the image quality that satifies YOU.

Photoflo works great to clean your screens, what we use when we are doing the final cleaning for ground glass is Dawn Dish soap and hot water with a scotch bright pad, and scrub, the hot water and dawn do a good job of getting rid of any finger oil and enivormental oils that have become embedded in the ground side of the glass, as mentioned in another thread never use anything abrasive on Fresnel screens as it will scratch the fresnel, but you would be surprised how dirty a ground glass can get over the years of use, or just sitting due to the pores on the ground side of the screen being open and they will accumilate all kinds of gunk.

Dave

_________________Focus on the Picture, Not on the Glass.
Satin Snow(TM) Ground Glass

I had a bad surprise when cleaning the screen in one of my Graflexes; washing the screen REMOVED the corner masks that were painted on it; I think they were india ink. Better to wipe it down with a paper towel dampened with windex, and try to avoid touching the corners. If all is lost you'll have to paint in the corners again.

While that may have been a replacement GG with a home-brew corner treatment, I've been careful with all my other GG cleaning efforts since then.

I encountered little black tissue paper squares under the corners of the ground glass. There wasn't much left of them. What there was i threw away. I didn't know what they were until I found myself reinventing them them with magic marker on my fresnel lens.

I ordered another fresnel lens from the big screen TV guy and when it comes I'll clean the bottom of the glass and make some black tissue corners.

Does anyone have words of wisdom about installing the lens. I've been thinking about holding it down by placing it under the clips that hold in the glass.

Is the ground glass ground or etched. I once replaced one on a yard sale full plate field camera, with a piece window glass I rubbed with emery. It worked but not very well.

Most of the OEM screens you find in Graflex cameras were actually sandblasted, which will not give you as good a surface to focus on as the true ground glass...

I would never recommend anything but warm water and dishsoap on a screen that has markings on them as they will wash off in certain instances..

Even the most expensive screens on the market can and will show damage if you are to rough with the surface if it has a grid applied to them...

I am currently working with Deardorff to find a way we can apply a more durable grid pattern to the screens, but currently the vast majority of screens with grids are made with baked on screen printing, which is not very durable.

Dave Parker

_________________Focus on the Picture, Not on the Glass.
Satin Snow(TM) Ground Glass

On 2005-11-03 18:24, disemjg wrote:
I had a bad surprise when cleaning the screen in one of my Graflexes; washing the screen REMOVED the corner masks that were painted on it; I think they were india ink. Better to wipe it down with a paper towel dampened with windex, and try to avoid touching the corners. If all is lost you'll have to paint in the corners again.

While that may have been a replacement GG with a home-brew corner treatment, I've been careful with all my other GG cleaning efforts since then.

[ This Message was edited by: disemjg on 2005-11-03 18:28 ]

I would be real interested to see the corner treatment you are talking about, is it possible for you to scan or take a picture or provide a drawing of what you are talking about?

Just curious.

Dave

_________________Focus on the Picture, Not on the Glass.
Satin Snow(TM) Ground Glass

I suppose I could post a pic somewhere, but let me try a thousand words first.

My B Graflex has a revolving back and can make either horizontal or vertical 4x5 negatives. But the ground glass doesn't rotate so some system is needed to compose both orientations.

In my camera the ground glass is a bit less than 5" square. So far so good. But the negative only has one 4" side and you need to know where the 4" borders of the image will be on the negative.

And here's where the little black tissue paper squares come in. There were four of them, each 1/2" square, and they were pasted one on each corner of the ground glass. It seems pretty clear that they are there to tell you where the 4" side of the 4x5 rectangle will be.

When I removed the ground glass to clean the mirror I found the remains of these bits of tissue. At the time I had no idea why they were there. But they were useless now. So I just cleaned them out.

When I installed my fresnel condensor lens, it occured to me that I could mark the 4" dimension on the plastic without doing any permanent harm to the camera. About the time I settled on little 1/2" squares on each corner of the plastic as the best solution, the penny dropped and the mystery of the little squares was a mystery no longer.

I looked at four of my cameras, ranging from an RB-Auto ('2 to a Super D. All had the corners painted to allow composition regardless of the film orientation. All were, of course, RB models. Some also had extra lines connecting the corners to further aid locating the image. One looked like it may be the ink treatment, as it did not have the opacity of the other GGs examined, and it seemed to not be quite as "black". You cannot easily tell unless you look at the bottom side of the GG.

The tissue paper squares sound like a home made solution on a replacement GG. Laying out the corners should be easy; just pencil in the outlines and paint them. I'm not sure why they would have used ink instead of paint, but the one I had cleaned sure did. I painted it to fix it.

One of the big problems we find with antique finishes on ground glass, is over the years they have dried out so much, that no matter what type of moisture they are subjected to will harm the markings, because they are very dry and suck the moisture up like a sponge, which breaks the bonds they have with the glass.

I remember when I moved to Hawaii, I had a couple of late 40's cameras that had markings on the screens, that with normal handling did not have any problems, but with in about 6 weeks of moving to Hawaii, the markings completely fell off the glass, at the time I was horified, and did not understand, but after a few years of working with screens and such have come to realize it was the high humidity and improper storage of the cameras and basic absorbtion of moisture in a material that had not been exposed to that type of moisture for over 40 years..

So, I guess the moral is just be real careful if you want to preserve the markings.

As far as the tissue, it sounds like it could be a home solution to replicate the markings orginally on the glass for film frame orientation.

Dave

_________________Focus on the Picture, Not on the Glass.
Satin Snow(TM) Ground Glass

I have three editions of the "Graphic Graflex Photography" book which used to turn up for less that a dollar or so at flea markets.

In the 1954 edition on the bottom of page 389 I find this. It's not in the earlier editions.

"In addition there is an Ektalite Field Lens (a Fresnel type collecting lens) under the the ground glass; this materially brightens the corners of te ground glass: The Ektalite Field Lens can be installed in any of the early Revolving Back Graflex Cameras."

So what sort of animal is this Ektalite Field Lens? Would putting the plastic do-it- yourself- Giant- TV lens below the ground glass work?

On the other thread, I'll report what it the book says about silvered mirrors. sorry for creating all the confusion